Tales of the Unexpected

as much tea as dear, sweet Mr Mulholland.’
    ‘I suppose he left fairly recently,’ Billy said. He was still puzzling his head about the two names. He was positive now that he had seen them in the newspapers – in the headlines.
    ‘Left?’ she said, arching her brows. ‘But my dear boy, he never left. He’s still here. Mr Temple is also here. They’re on the third floor, both of them together.’
    Billy set down his cup slowly on the table, and stared at his landlady. She smiled back at him, and then she put out one of her white hands and patted him comfortingly on the knee. ‘How old are you, my dear?’ she asked.
    ‘Seventeen.’
    ‘Seventeen!’ she cried. ‘Oh, it’s the perfect age! Mr Mulholland was also seventeen. But I think he was a trifle shorter than you are, in fact I’m sure he was, and his teeth weren’t
quite
so white. You have the most beautiful teeth, Mr Weaver, did you know that?’
    ‘They’re not as good as they look,’ Billy said. ‘They’ve got simply masses of fillings in them at the back.’
    ‘Mr Temple, of course, was a little older,’ she said, ignoring his remark. ‘He was actually twenty-eight. And yet I never would have guessed it if he hadn’t told me, never in my whole life. There wasn’t a
blemish
on his body.’
    ‘A what?’ Billy said.
    ‘His skin was
just
like a baby’s.’
    There was a pause. Billy picked up his teacup and took another sip of his tea, then he set it down again gently in its saucer. He waited for her to say something else, but she seemed to have lapsed into another of her silences. He sat there staring straight ahead of him into the far corner of the room, biting his lower lip.
    ‘That parrot,’ he said at last. ‘You know something? It had me completely fooled when I first saw it through the window from the street. I could have sworn it was alive.’
    ‘Alas, no longer.’
    ‘It’s most terribly clever the way it’s been done,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t look in the least bit dead. Who did it?’
    ‘I did.’
    ‘
You
did?’
    ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘And you have met my little Basil as well?’ She nodded towards the dachshund curled up so comfortably in front of the fire. Billy looked at it. And suddenly, he realized that this animal had all the time been just as silent and motionless as the parrot. He put out a hand and touched it gently on the top of its back. The back was hard and cold, and when he pushed the hair to one side with his fingers, he could see the skin underneath, greyish-black and dry and perfectly preserved.
    ‘Good gracious me,’ he said. ‘How absolutely fascinating.’ He turned away from the dog and stared with deep admiration at the little woman beside him on the sofa. ‘It must be most awfully difficult to do a thing like that.’
    ‘Not in the least,’ she said. ‘I stuff
all
my little pets myself when they pass away. Will you have another cup of tea?’
    ‘No, thank you,’ Billy said. The tea tasted faintly of bitter almonds, and he didn’t much care for it.
    ‘You did sign the book, didn’t you?’
    ‘Oh, yes.’
    ‘That’s good. Because later on, if I happen to forget what you were called, then I can always come down here and look it up. I still do that almost every day with Mr Mulholland and Mr… Mr…’
    ‘Temple,’ Billy said. ‘Gregory Temple. Excuse my asking, but haven’t there been
any
other guests here except them in the last two or three years?’
    Holding her teacup high in one hand, inclining her head slightly to the left, she looked up at him Out of the corners of her eyes and gave him another gentle little smile.
    ‘No, my dear,’ she said. ‘Only you.’

William and Mary
    William Pearl did not leave a great deal of money when he died, and his will was a simple one. With the exception of a few bequests to relatives, he left all his property to his wife.
    The solicitor and Mrs Pearl went over it together in the solicitor’s office, and when the business was completed, the widow got up to leave. At that point, the solicitor took a sealed envelope from the folder on his desk and held it out to his client.
    ‘I have been instructed to give you this,’ he said. ‘Your husband sent it to us shortly before he passed away.’ The solicitor was pale and prim, and out of respect for a widow he kept his head on one side as he spoke, looking downward. ‘It appears that it might be something personal, Mrs Pearl. No doubt you’d like to take it home with you and